Todays haul

[Rickf1985]

Well, I am sure most of you have seen my other thread about the huge haul of wheel weights I got and after going through a couple of the buckets I realized they were 100% lead, no trash, not zinc, no steel! So I went back today and got all the rest he had, another 500 lbs. That gives me 1500lbs. total WW's. But I also snagged some other goodies today. Some Extra wiping ingots which I am researching and some blocks that are the same as the ones I got before and some pigs that are similar to lino but are not lino pigs. One has a W stamped in each end and I suspect they may be WW. A small block that was tested with the vise and ball method and marked Tin and a small round stick I suspect is a solder bar.
So overall today was 500lbs. WW and 250lbs. of other. But all the "other" rings like a bell! No thuds when you tap them.
I think I am pretty much set for a while. The only bad part of this haul of weights was that they were stored on buckets with no holes and full of water so the clips rusted for several years and they are crusty. Going to be a lot of dross and fluxing. These will be waiting for a while to get done. I have found a lot of weights with markings I have never seen before, I am going to start tossing them aside and taking pics of them so someone can add them to the ones I have seen online here.

[lightman]

Thats a nice score. You are wise to get them when you can. I've melted wet and muddy weights with rusty clips before. If you load your smelting pot before applying the heat you will have no problems. There may have been a little more dross but it wasn't enough to cause me to remember it.

For some reason I can't see your pictures, only a blue box with a question mark.

[Rickf1985]

Thats a nice score. You are wise to get them when you can. I've melted wet and muddy weights with rusty clips before. If you load your smelting pot before applying the heat you will have no problems. There may have been a little more dross but it wasn't enough to cause me to remember it.

For some reason I can't see your pictures, only a blue box with a question mark.

Pictures, I had to post them with postimage, Maybe that is an issue? The attachment feature on the forum will no longer work for me, it just keeps telling me that the upload failed.

[dverna]

Smart to get the rest!

[Chaparral66]

In a collection pick up earlier in the week I got a 1 1/2 five gallon buckets (all the empty buckets I had). I have not sorted them all but I'm running about 50% are COWW or SOWW and the other 50% is all manner of junk, zinc, steel, plastic and mystery materials. I can go back every week to collect what they have. The junk guy can't be bothered with them so up until I stopped in they were going into their dumpster.

[openbook]

I've also got a steady source of junk wheel weights that were going to the recycler. Unfortunately it's about 75% trash, but I'm OK with free lead for just a couple hours of sorting. I called four shops and got two willing to give me their old weights.

[Huskerguy]

A while back a buddy found several buckets of lead that had been gathering water and rusted as well. They were actually some of the nicest stuff to melt, not a problem at all.

[Cosmic_Charlie]

When the lead i am smelting has me worried about moisture, i load the pot and then turn on the gas. I leave it go a while and don't go near it until it is completely melted. So far the fairy has never showed up.

[Smoke4320]

get all you can .. I see it becoming nearly unobtainium in the future. Nice thing is it will not go bad . easy to store